SY406 Corporate Power

I guess you could say I've been raised with the cynical point of view that greed is a major force behind why a lot of those high in power make illogical decisions that they obviously know the consequences of and it's refreshing that this course brings that perspective to the forefront because ultimately, in my opinion at least, these are the people ruining the world. A good point was brought up in class on Thursday how all the blame can't be placed on the CEO's and any single individual but it just goes to show how many of these people there are that there's actually groups of people that agree on certain detrimental decisions. One has to wonder if these people always had this state of mind or if it came with their wealth. BC Forbes is quoted as saying, "The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure," and I couldn't agree more. Clearly my psychology background is shining through a bit as it will in future postings as well I'm sure but it really interests me to know how people arrange their values and priorities, especially when it comes to corporations and media and what those in power decide to put in the spotlight and then are able to sleep soundly at night.

I think Tasha and Adam did a good job which their choice of article and movie clips to show and I guess you could say they should have answered my questions with things like the propaganda model and how the media serves the interest of elite groups but since corporations feel the need to be seen as individual entities I think they should be critiqued as such. The president/prime minister and other world leaders often get the blame for when things go wrong but it's my belief that these "elite groups" should get just as much blame, if not more as they are undoubtedly the ones who shape the public's opinion on any issue they choose. I was dscussing this with my dad one day and he brought up a good point. Just as an example, when pitbulls were gaining increasing attention in the media due to their "viciousness" and even had a ban placed on them in certain areas, this must have been a cover up for some other issue that the "elite groups" didn't want to have attention drawn to. I say this because there is no way these attacks weren't happening before then and you can't tell me they've completely stopped now, yet I haven't heard one story of a pitbull attack since. This can be traced back to the issue attention cycle but it just goes to show that the cycle itself is controlled by corporations.